This chieftain's knife was not used in a martial way. It
was strictly a symbol of authority. It was part of the
royal regalia. The chief was the only one who could own
and display this heirloom of prestige and power. It is
a most elegant anthropomorphic and simultaneously
zoomorphic form. It looks like a human being with its
hands held high as if in a dance trance. It looks like
the horns of a buffalo. It also has a sexual connotation
of the female and male principles. There are incised
designs on the blade that are also significant and are probably an iconographic vocabulary not just mere
decorative designs.

This particular knife is a top quality example. The blade
meets symmetrically at the two top points, which isn't
always the case. The condition of all the metal work is
pristine. The wood handle is not chipped and broken,
which is also not the normal condition that the handles
are in. The primary vertical body of the knife is slender
and well proportioned and, viewed in comparison with any others, an excellent example of the shaman-iron worker's
skill. In Africa there was an obsession for hand-made
metal knives, currencies, spears and ritual objects.
Because the solid rock ore was pulsified and eventually
liquefied in the smelting and manufacturing process and
then later cast or forged into a solid again, there was magic and alchemy involved. Metal objects are considered
to be sacred and mystical, not just inanimate silent
products. This scepter was a transformational object of
material culture held in highest esteem by the tribe and
the chief who owned it.